


Allegro et Adagio

by Delacroix



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: F/F, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-23
Updated: 2020-10-23
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:21:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27161072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Delacroix/pseuds/Delacroix
Summary: Acxa, top cellist of the orchestra, is forced to play a duet with Veronica McClain. Her vibrant playing and mastery of the piano will finally force Acxa out of her shell.
Relationships: Acxa/Veronica (Voltron), Keith/Lance (Voltron)
Kudos: 8





	Allegro et Adagio

The auditorium stood in silence. It was a symbol of admiration for Acxa’s technique. Of course, silence can always express multiple things at once, so it is possible that her companions were both worshiping the thousand arches of her fingers as she played Bach and loathing her. There was, however, a certain flaw in her interpretation, for despite her expertise in the application of the musical nuances her performance lacked a soul. Although Acxa was far from considering herself perfect, she did not appreciate it when an unknown face standing in the doorstep pointed this out. Dark skin, glasses and smile on.

“It’s a mere warming up exercise. It has no need for a soul,” she answered.

“Bach’s _Suite no. 1_ for violoncello a warming exercise? Ah, I see you are one of those,” the woman said, shrugging on her way to the stage.

“One of those?”

“Old school. The kind that treats Bach’s suites as é _tudes_ and thinks that warming up exercises are only about technique.”

The two were now facing each other on stage, the other members in the stalls leaning forward. I suppose that to them this encounter must have looked quite like the scene of Commendatore in Mozart’s _Don Giovanni_. Indeed, many might have enjoyed the words of this newcomer, the way in which she forced Acxa to see a reality that she had been avoiding to look at. And of course, there was the question of the _dénouement_. Would Acxa repent for her past sins, or would she, like Don Giovanni, refuse and be dragged to hell by an entourage of demons?

“And what do you think?” Acxa asked. She could not find herself to point out the mistakes in other people’s behaviours or beliefs. Asking questions, she had learnt, was the greatest form of defiance.

“That like every living creature, from the daisy to the pine, every note must have its soul.”

“Yes, but do you put what you preach into practice?”

“I do. I pour a part of a soul in everything I play, even in tuning. That’s how I was taught.”

“Oh, I see you have met our temporal addition to the orchestra.”

Kolivan entered the auditorium like a razor, slashing this miraculous atmosphere. How else can we describe the repercussions of this meeting without resorting to the present? It was a pity. Acxa wanted to keep the conversation going, ask her what kind of education she had had. She wasn’t quite satisfied with the position she had been left in. It looked too much like defeat.

“Veronica McClain. I will be playing the piano part in Liszt’s transcription of _Wanderer Fantasy by Schubert_ ,” she bowed.

“And she will be the second player in your duet Acxa. Remember to agree on a piece. I need the official list of performances for the end of the month.”

Kolivan continued to speak and the rest of the orchestra got on the stage, but even when they started tuning their instruments, Acxa heard nothing. The rehearsal was an utter failure. That is, by her own standards. In the end, her delays were almost indiscernible and no one could appreciate the sudden clumsiness of her fingers, stepping uneasy on the strings. Once and again she tried to bring her consciousness back to the present, the Kolivan’s orders and the parts of the instruments. There was nothing to be done. She was too busy looking at Veronica. How she got on stage with a folder. The sheets of music she took out, various pages clumsily stuck together by sellotape. Her expertise in the piano solos, her fingers moving swiftly and magically. It was as if Acxa was experiencing the world through a lens that blurred the presence of the rest of the players and allowed her to perceive only Veronica. And she was glory. The silence of a finished piece broke this spell.

***

Acxa had accepted Veronica’s invitation after the rehearsal. She had assumed that they would be going to an empty class to agree on a piece for the duet but instead, she was dragged to Veronica’s house. Confusion overtook her. Chaos ruled that house, everything seemed out of place: clothes, a collection of cheap souvenirs next to porcelain plates, wineglasses with intricate designs and toys, everywhere.

“Sorry for the mess.” Like Moses, Veronica was parting this sea of shambles to create a way to her instrument. Acxa was shocked by the simplicity of the piano. She would have expected that a musician of her caliber to own the grandest of pianos but it was just a an old spinet.

“Would you like something to drink? Some coffee? My mother bought some pastries this morning. Would you like one?”

Acxa doubted.

“I’m sorry. I should have told you before. The truth is I can’t stay long. I just wanted to show you my idea for the duet.”

She put her cello down. From the pocket in the case, she extracted a worn out copy of Debussy’s _Sonata for cello and piano_. Veronica looked at the music sheet, the annotations in all the colours of the rainbow, the curved edges as if someone had rolled up the paper repeatedly. Then, she rose her eyes to meet Acxa’s, who for some reason, was blushing.

“I had thought we could play a couple of short pieces together, to find a common rhythm, before we made a choice.”

“I’m sorry.” Acxa repeated, Debussy still extended between them. Veronica pushed the paper softly, back towards its owner. Her eyebrows were curved in a conflicted expression. Understanding but also a little bit sad. It left Acxa with an uncomfortable taste in her mouth.

“Don’t apologise. We could try this one. I’ll read it over a couple of times today and on Friday we can meet before the orchestra rehearsal. I’ll bring a proposal of my own. Does that work?”

Acxa nodded and walked herself out, the music sheet still in her hands. Until she got to her cello lesson, she didn’t realise that she had also forgotten to fasten the zip of the cello case. Absent-mindedly, she thought whether something might have dropped out at Veronica’s house.

“You are later than usual.” Krolia had just entered the classroom, cello hanging from her back.

“I was meeting with Veronica McClain.”

“Oh yes. The pianist. Kolivan talked to me about her. Brilliant, he says.”

“She is,” she confirmed. “A little bit too bold if you ask me.”

“Is that so?” Krolia sat in a chair and watched her pupil take out her instrument, lips displayed a half smile at the obvious unsettlement of Acxa, who had little taste for unpredictable experiences. “What have you brought for me? Do you want to start with some Bach to warm up?”

“No,” Acxa responded hurriedly. “No Bach.” Somehow, Krolia felt that she had struck the wrong chord. “I’d like to review Debussy’s sonata. It’s my proposal for the duet.”

“Debussy? And Veronica has agreed?”

When Acxa looked up, she saw her teacher pulling the same expression as Veronica had minutes earlier and like then, she felt the sourness in her tongue.

***

Veronica stopped playing in the middle of the _sérénade_. Acxa clicked her tongue.

“I’m sorry, but I really don’t think we should play this.”

“Why not?”

“I just don’t think this piece is too good for you,” Veronica answered, taking of her glasses and massaging the bridge of her nose. ”It puts too much weight on the cello and this is supposed to be a duet. I am not here just to accompany you.”

“Pardon?”

Veronica glanced at her briefly, her tight grasp on the bow and turned to face Acxa.

“I noticed this too when we were playing Liszt the other day, but you really are no good at team playing.”

“What do you mean?”

“With you it’s always as if everyone else is an accompanying.”

“So I’m a show off?”

“No! I wasn’t saying that. Just that you have a hard time working with others. I don’t know if it is because you don’t quite know how to act, but you end up playing completely on your own and the rest is forced to follow after you.”

Acxa gulped and look to the floor. It was like all the times that she had been told off by her previous teachers. Why was it that every time someone pointed something out about her playing she went back to kindergarten and felt as if she had just been called a “bad girl”.

“Look, why don’t we try something where the instruments are more equal. How about Schumann’s _Adagio and Allegro_?” Veronica offered Acxa a copy of the piece.

With an inviting look she started playing, alone at first, until Acxa felt like joining her. Soon, she started swinging and she noticed that Veronica too was doing her own little dance. She was looking at Acxa intermittently, but her gazes were always avoided. Veronica was too overwhelming to look at. Still, Acxa couldn’t breathe. She was quite overcome by her playing. The piece felt like a contest in which they were trying to persuade each other to experience certain emotions. Acxa was playing like a bird trying to escape into a frenetic flight into the blue sky, and Veronica, with her sweet and serene melody, was the loving hands that were trying to bring her back to the floor. She was satisfied by the rashness of Veronica’s playing towards the middle. It meant that she was not the only one being overcome. This time, it was Acxa that was trying to bring Veronica back to the ground. She could almost feel it beneath her feet, fresh and homelike, the earth getting between her toes. In the end she joined Veronica’s speed with a smile. By this time, the exchanges were less concealed and Acxa often found herself looking at her partner in the eye. When it was time for the ending notes, their eyes met deliberately.

The silence was heavy on both their lungs. They had to stay like that for some minutes, both of them trying to ease their fatigue.

“How was it?” Veronica asked.

“I don’t know.” Acxa answered. Now she understood what Veronica had said, because what they had done there, in that classroom in a spare hour, was definitely different from what she had played in other ensembles. It was a first.

They left for rehearsals without reaching an agreement. This weighed on Acxa’s mind. No matter how many times she returned to the sheet music, seconds afterwards, her thoughts flew away to a newly discovered corner. She dwelt on the practice with Veronica, on her conflicted smile that someone found its way to the face of Krolia. The piece suffered from Acxa’s volatility. Other cellos certainly noticed the change in the routine, but were not unpleased by having to shoulder more. Acxa, on the other hand, was ashamed.

When Kolivan dismissed the orchestra, she flew away before she could be singled out as the author of the butchering that had been saved only by Veronica. She remembered what Schubert had once said. “The devil may play it!” He was wrong. Despite their ups and downs, Veronica was no devil. She wasn’t an angel either. Only human, gloriously human. It pained her how much it differed from her own demeanour. She was never called a devil, per se, but often people remarked on her mechanical playing. Not only was she not human, she wasn’t even good at pretending. Even Veronica had pointed out the soulessness of her performance. Long were the days when this comments bothered her. Yet now, walking down the aisle of the conservatory, she wanted to hide in a corner, to run. But she could never run long or fast enough to escape the bystanders, who probably didn’t even know her and nevertheless, carried in their eyes the same accusations.

Only the coastal air brought her relief, her feet hanging over the estuary. Now they were only her and the fish. And the cello. Always the cello. And Veronica.

“We don’t have to play Schumann if you don’t want. We can just stick to Debussy if you feel more comfortable,” she said, sitting down.

“No!” Acxa sounded too loud, too outraged. “No,” she repeated more calmly. “We should definitely go with Schumann. We will never get what happened in the classroom with Debussy.”

“Are you sure? It seems like it has really shaken you.” Veronica kept looking at Acxa, as if waiting for a look back. It didn’t happen. Not yet.

“I had fun. I have never had fun before.”

“Not even as a child?”

“I was too young.”

“And later on?”

“Too much pain.” The confession came out so faint, like a sigh of relief. “You see, I was never taught to love music. Just to get things done. No one told me that I had to put a soul into it. I just had to read what was in the sheet. That’s how I was taught.”

“Then maybe that explains why you play the way you do. Beautiful, but so, so sad. When I hear you, it sounds very much like grief.”

“Perhaps you are right. Perhaps I’m mourning the musician I could have been.”

“You know it is not too late. Liszt wasn’t serious about the piano until he was 21. He was changed by listening to Paganini. It seems only fair that he changes someone in return.”

It was not Liszt, Acxa wanted to confess. But as she turned to face Veronica, the words died in her mouth. There was something about this woman that made her go blank.

“I am older now. Set in my ways. I cannot change so easily,” she said instead.

“That’s okay.”

“Right now, I don’t even know how I should play.”

“That’s okay too. We’ll figure it out.”

This time, Veronica was looking at her differently. There was still a certain understanding in her face, as if she was saying “I care about you.” But while previously she had looked at her eyes, she now was looking at her lips. When Veronica noticed her staring she blushed a little and put a lock of hair behind Acxa’s ear.

***

It would be foolish to try to describe the performance of this miraculous duet that fateful night. Such a restrictive tool as language could hardly suffice. However, may I suggest that you imagine Acxa and Veronica dancing in each other’s arms. Every silence a lover’s sigh, every rush in the rhythm a frantic turn, every vibrato a tender kiss.

Later on during Liszt, Acxa was distracted, her eyes alternating between Kolivan, the sheet and Veronica. Her previous teachers would have been disgusted by this lack of attention but in the stalls Krolia lughed. Acxa savoured the piano solos like honey. To her, they felt like a cold shower in the heat of summer and when Veronica was leaving the stage leaving the orchestra to interpret the rest of the pieces, Acxa brushed her hand. For a brief second, she peeked under her shoulder to the path that Veronica had followed out of the auditorium. After they finished, she tried not to seem rushed. But once they were out she left her companions to their celebrations and ran to the room where they had left their cases. Veronica was gone. Still, she didn’t stop.

The cello was left behind, to be cared by Krolia. A motorcycle substituted the instrument that for so long had been like a tortoise shell, a part of herself always on her back. She couldn’t quite remember the way to her house. Round and round she went in the same neighbourhood. She asked the around, but no one seemed to know the McClains. Hope was lost on her, until a young man who was passing by, an arm around her boyfriend’s waist.

“Do you have any problem with my family?” he asked.

“I need to see Veronica,” she spurted.

Apparently, she had taken the wrong turn. A little bit too overtaken by adrenaline, he thanked the boy in a scream as she got back on the motorcycle.

At last, she found herself in front of Veronica’s door and knocked. Steps were approaching the door from the other side. Acxa tried to smooth her hair that had adopted a weird shape because of the helmet, wiped the sweat from the forehead, cleared her throat… Nothing seemed to get her ready enough. The door was opened by a middle aged Latina lady. Her hair was like Veronica’s but longer. For a fleeting moment, Acxa allowed herself to imagine an aged Veronica.

“Do you need anything?” she asked in a honeyed tone.

“Uh,” Acxa mumbled. Then over the woman’s shoulder, she watched sun-kissed Veronica rushing downstairs. “Would you like for us to meet again?” she asked, perhaps too loud.

Veronica smiled sweetly.

“I thought I heard you.”


End file.
